Earlier this week, the Ontario government, which has been raining promises on the electorate for months, pledged to create thousands more long-term beds and increase the time devoted to direct care of frail people in health facilities.

Ontario needs a lot more nursing homes run by local governments and non-profit groups, New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath says, instead of relying on profit-making private companies to fill in gaps left by public authorities.

Ontario is setting up its long-term-care system to fail because of a lack of funding, says an Ottawa personal support worker who says more people from inside the system need to speak up about what they are seeing.

Ontario’s personal support workers need their own governing body to offer more accountability to residents in long-term care and their families, says the head of a group that represents 25,000 of these workers.